Sigs wrote:The ships were available
They were not available. Stop insisting they were.
You can engage in "alternative history" discussions, but please make it clear that you're doing that. If you're trying to analyse what could have been happening in the mainline history, then you have to accept the text and it says those ships were not available.
when the situation changed and the PN started losing ground the comitee should have rubbed two braincells together and come up with the obvious solution of bringing in all of the BB's except a small rear area QRF. Situation changes and the leadership should be able to reassess that situation and make changes. It is overkill that even the most ignorant civilian on the committee should be able to see.
I agree they should have. I agree those ships should have been available. But knowing they weren't available in the beginning, we also have to assume there's a reason they didn't become available later.
More than that, the PN had lots of DNs and SDs that it could have used. And those were not tied down in rear-area defence. Taking a chunk of them out for the Capital Fleet and for the Trevor's Star detachment should have left enough to crush the Alliance's battle fleets. But they were completely MIA themselves too, at least until Operation Stalking Horse.
And that makes no sense, launch an offensive against the Alliance, force a powerful neutral nation into the alliance and then sit back and wait for them to build up their fleet and think up of new technologies. A lot of the books are written so well and make sense then you have this major events that make no sense or make the characters look like absolute clowns that shouldn't be in charge of an ice cream shop let alone a major nation.
Getting the Andermani to join up with the Alliance was definitely not part of the plans. It was not a given it would happen either: there was enough going on between the Manticore and Andermani forces in Silesia that could have sparked open hostilities, like the loss of HMS Jessica Epps. If Honor hadn't personally gone to meet with von Rabenstrage, it might have deteriorated.
Theisman may have objected to stopping short of their true capabilities, and crippling Manticore in one strike. But it wasn't his decision, it was Pritchart's. And I think he was also smart enough to realise that crippling Manticore at this stage would have brought revanchism later on, which is also a reason why the GA didn't go all out on the Solarian League.
This is another example where purely military objectives were not the deciding factor in the decision-making.
Problem with that theory is that the main Committee members were rather intelligent and should be able to figure out that when the navy is losing and begging for more ships keeping battleships in the rear makes no sense. Throughout the series there were plenty of examples when the battleships were used but that only happened in small enough numbers and too late to make a difference.
Intelligent people have blind spots too. Besides, before Esther McQueen, none of the committee members (of which there were more than 3) had military experience. The Committee specifically purged the military and did not want them anywhere near the decision-making centres because the military - especially the Navy - were full of Legislaturalists whose loyalty was in question. That means the Committee did not have military experts to provide data to make decisions.
That means you had a lot of armchair quarterbacks making military decisions.
Plus, the flag officer ranks were completely gutted during the purge. Who was the Committee going to trust with those battleships?
Say I have 160 SD's and 160 BB's defending Trevor's Star and the 10 stars around it. Which makes more sense:
6 Systems have 1 SD and 1 BB squadron, each, 4 have 2 SD and 2 BB squadrons each and Trevors star has 6 SD and 6 BB squadrons
or Trevor's Star having 20 SD squadrons and 20 BB squadrons?
The former, given their understanding of tactics and strategy at the time. Plus, those other systems were likely still somewhat productive, having been annexed only 10-15 years prior.
One splits the forces needlessly and lets them be defeated in detail by a much smaller enemy force, the other surrenders systems that the RHN would lose anyway, keeps the strategically important system under control and frees substantial SD and BB squadrons for offensive operations without endangering the important system.
I hear you, but the decision was not military-only. The military was required to be strong everywhere by their political masters. That led to it being unable to concentrate force.
One scenario has the RMN marching in with 60 SD's and crushing the RHN in battle after battle in small pockets of resistance while the other has the RHN allowing the RMN to capture systems they would have taken anyway, keep a force that would prevent the RMN from taking Trevor's Star and still free up a few dozen SD's ad BB's to go out and make the RMN question their decisions.
Remember also that the Alliance was hard pressed to put together any sort of fleet. Sixth Fleet had what, 2 squadrons of the wall when they attacked Nightingale? 3?
Prior to the outset of the war and the use of pods, the PN probably assumed that keeping 1 battle squadron would give the Alliance pause even at 3:1 superiority. They'd likely win, yes, but they'd be sufficiently damaged that the attrition rate would be in the PN's favour. The PN probably also had more yards, so it thought it could replace ships faster too, despite the RMN building each ship in a shorter time.
After the war started, it was clear that 3:1 in the PN's favour wouldn't be enough. But by this time, the PN was in complete disarray, with no capable flag officer who could pass information to the Octagon, some systems threatening to secede (led by the very admirals who were supposed to protect them), etc. That didn't start to turn until Esther McQueen's ascendancy.
